


Hallmark Moment

by GhostofBambi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-23 14:47:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17082332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostofBambi/pseuds/GhostofBambi
Summary: Give your heart to a stranger this festive season.





	Hallmark Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeeDaily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeeDaily/gifts).



> There is a family who live close to my house called the Trampoline Family. That's not their real name. I don't know their real name, and to be honest, I wouldn't recognise one of them if I saw them in the street. The reason I call them the Trampoline Family is because they keep a massive trampoline in their front garden. Inspired, right? Every December, they drown the front of their house in multicoloured lights and giant inflatable Christmas figures. They go all out. Their house is probably visible from space.
> 
> As my boyfriend would be quick to tell you, I am such an ardent Christmas lights enthusiast that I consider it a romantic date when he drives me around the neighbourhood at night to look at them, and no lights make me happier than those which belong to the Trampoline Family. Every December, when Stephen and I are driving past their house, I say, "I need to put a Christmas card through their door to thank them for the lights!" but I NEVER DO because I am the worst.
> 
> This year, I said the same thing one evening, and the idea for this story popped into my head. It's sort of like a Christmassy Careless Texter. Only not. Don't hold me to that. Careless Texter was a wild ten days that I'm not sure I could ever recreate.
> 
> This fic is for Bee, my friend, my love, my scene partner. I adore you and I can't wait to see you in New York in April!!!

 

"Can you believe what the maniacs in Flat 2 did to their door this afternoon?" said Angela from across the hall.

Trapped on the steps that led up to the front door of her apartment building, Lily Evans frowned. "They did something to their door?"

"Didn’t you see it?"

"I’ve been at work all day," Lily explained, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "What have they done? Is it bad?"

"Oh, just you wait," said Angela darkly. "It's an eyesore—an absolute eyesore!"

Angela's voice was lower and more gravelly than usual, like she was narrating a Vice documentary.

She was probably savouring her role as bearer of bad news.

Angela was a bad news kind of person, always poking her nose into the affairs of others, conducting screaming matches over the phone and regaling Lily with complaints about the guy in Flat 17 on the second floor. He apparently liked to cause a ruckus, though Lily had never heard evidence of this. What she did know was that Harrison in Flat 17 was a popular performer at a nearby drag club, and therein, she suspected, lay the source of Angela's beef with him.

Lily couldn't stand Angela from across the hall, but she didn't want to lock herself into a feud with an unstable neighbour, so she always tried to be polite when they crossed paths.

She was also largely uninterested in knowing what the people in Flat 2 had done to their door and more concerned with getting into the building. It was wet and cold out, and Lily was tired, having been grocery shopping after a very late finish at work. The thinning plastic handles of several Tesco carrier bags were biting lesions into her fingers.

"That's such a shame, Angela," she sighed.

It was a shame that Lily wasn't in her flat right at that moment, drinking Freixenet Cava directly from the bottle and singing along to whichever of Whitney Houston's greatest hits cropped up first on shuffle.

She'd had a stressful day at work, she reminded herself, as a niggling voice in her head cried, "Loser!" Nobody had warned her about the headache of movie tie-ins when she'd started working in publishing. She'd gone twelve rounds with the art department over a cover by midday, sacrificed her lunch hour to a routine smear test, and had four text messages from her sister to respond to, each one more irate than the last.

Lily needed Whitney to wipe the grime from her day. Or Kate Bush, depending on how desperate she was feeling after she finally ate.

"I have half a mind to complain to the landlady," said Angela, who was still going. "Fat lot of good it would do me, though. You know it took her _three_ weeks to get back to me when my kitchen light went out? And me with my bad back! How was I supposed to change the bulb myself?"

Lily did not point out that Harrison in Flat 17 had been most helpful in assisting Lily with her clogged sink back in September.

"That's terrible, Angela," she said instead.

"I don't think I'll bother complaining. Christmas will have come and gone by the time she can be bothered to stop by," Angela fretted, clutching her handbag to her chest as though frightened that a stranger might jump out and snatch it away, "but look at me, letting you distract me when I've got to get going." She drew herself up self-importantly. "It's singles' night at the bingo."

"Oh," said Lily dully. "How lovely."

"You know, you could come with me, if you want. Plenty of my friends are bringing their sons along."

"Tempting as that is, Angela, I've got a lot of work to do tonight."

"You career girls, I don't know," said Angela the twice divorced, waggling a finger as if she knew better. "Can't put it off forever—not at your age! The clock will start ticking before you know it, and all the good ones will be taken!"

She spoke as if Lily was nearing pensionable age, when in fact she was only twenty-seven.

Very soon to be twenty-eight, but that hardly mattered. Meg Ryan's Sally said that the clock didn't really start to tick until thirty-five, and even then, Lily wasn't sure if she cared enough to make the clock a priority. Maybe she'd birth a youngster one day. Maybe she wouldn't. The matter of her unborn progeny wasn't terribly important to her.

Some lovely sex would have been nice, but really good sex was harder to find than the Loch Ness Monster in this day and age.

"I'll keep that in mind," Lily lied, and stepped around her neighbour, desperate to get indoors. "Have a fun night."

"I'll find a man for you yet!" cried Angela, as Lily shifted her carrier bags to one hand and unlocked the front door. Then she turned and swanned off into the darkness, no doubt excited to meet a hapless widower at singles' bingo and harangue him to within an inch of his life.

"Miserable cow," Lily murmured as she let herself in.

She immediately found herself staring at what the maniacs in Flat 2 had done to their door.

To start, they'd covered it in paper from top to bottom, then painted it to resemble a fireplace, complete with paper stockings bearing the names of various Bond villains. A massive wreath of multi-coloured baubles was fastened around the peephole, interwoven with equally colourful lights that flashed on and off with manic energy. A massive arch—which seemed to have been constructed from several gift boxes glued together—stood in place of the door frame.

For added flair, a pair of black rubber boots were sticking out of the cat flap.

No wonder Angela was furious, Lily thought, her attention briefly diverted from the stinging pain in her fingers as she took in every detail of the spectacle. It was gaudy and colourful and ostentatious, and stuck out in the drab, beige hallway like the sorest of sore thumbs.

Also, it was the best thing Lily had seen all year.

*******

_To the people in Flat 2,_

_I just wanted to say that I really love the festive front door extravaganza you've got going, which I found very cheerful and inspiring as I trudged into the building after a long day at work last night._

_As luck would have it, I have in my possession several Christmas cards that I bought at Clinton's yesterday and it seemed only right and fitting that you be the first recipient of one of these very special cards. Note the assortment of festive cats which adorn its front. That's real glitter, that is. I do not scrimp on cards, though even I can admit from a logical perspective that they're useless pieces of tat peddled by Hallmark to the susceptible masses._

_Anyway, thank you SO much for cheering me up and I'm running out of space now so I will just say Happy Christmas if you celebrate it (which you obviously do? Hah)_

_Lily in Flat 9_

*******

On that first Friday night, which marked the end of November and the beginning of one of her favourite months of the year, Lily had dragged her shopping upstairs in higher spirits than she could have anticipated upon first walking into her building. With her aching fingers relieved of their torture, she'd packed her groceries away, tucked in to some delicious salmon fishcakes, poured herself a glass of Cava and danced around her living room for over an hour—first to Cher, then George Michael, and finally her beloved Whitney—in her favourite footie pyjamas.

It wasn't as if Angela could complain. She was on the prowl at singles' bingo.

Then she wrote a Christmas card to the maniacs in Flat 2, which she brought downstairs immediately, tripping a little tipsily on the bottom step of the stairs. After she shoved it into their mailbox by the building door, she returned to the first floor to pop on a facemask and listen to "I'm Your Baby Tonight" with a lot more wine.

She also called Beatrice to rant about the Great Book Cover Battle of 2018, but Lily was so trashed at that point that she couldn't remember much about it the next morning.

If Angela from across the hall had complained to the landlady about the occupants of Flat 2 when she got home, no immediate action had been taken, because their door continued to resemble a holiday miracle all weekend. It filled Lily with a feeling of real cheer when she trudged downstairs on Saturday morning with her gym bag slung over her shoulder, which was fortuitous, as she'd been silently contemplating stuffing it in one of the bins outside and spending her day slamming hot chocolates in the Costa down the road.

Go to the gym she did, however, where she found an annoyingly perky Beatrice waiting for her in the dressing room.

"I'm surprised you came," Beatrice flatly informed her, while she admired her new swimming costume in one of the mirrors. "You were fucked last night."

"I wasn't fucked," Lily retorted. "I was mildly tipsy."

"You were plotting to murder that cow who lives across the hall from you," said Bea. "Something about trapping her head in a bingo cage and yelling, 'who's man-alive-number-five _now,_ bitch?' and you only get into murder in a big way when you're really bladdered."

Lily glanced at herself in the mirror over Bea's shoulder. Aside from some dark circles beneath her eyes, she didn't much look as if she'd been drunk the night before. Her skin looked uncommonly pale beneath the dressing room lights, but that wasn't unusual for a woman as decidedly redheaded as she. She'd succumbed to sunburn once over the summer, but that had long since faded to a fresh smattering of freckles on her arms.

"You say 'a big way' like I've ever murdered someone," she retorted, adjusting the straps of her own swimsuit. "And as if you wouldn't jump at the chance to help me bury a body."

"It'd be something different to do."

"Different, and illegal."

Beatrice shrugged. "You were the one planning to decapitate a middle-aged biddy."

"And we all had a lot of laughs, but that's over now," said Lily, with a sly smile. "Are we going to swim, or are you going to stand there salivating over yourself all morning?"

After their swim came a long, lazy lunch, and Lily devoted the rest of her day trying to get the head of her art department on the phone to see if they'd made any headway with that blasted cover. Sunday brought a trip to Lily's mother's house for the weekly roast, where she found her sister waiting for her with all guns blazing. Lily had had the audacity to forget to reply to Petunia's texts on Friday.

"I was super busy with work, Tuney," Lily explained in the living room after dinner, which was only half a lie. She'd been chock-a-block until she'd gotten back to her flat, then she'd been distracted—first by Angela and the magical Christmas door, then by a Spotify parade of pop icons. "We've got that movie tie-in to finish before Christmas, and it's absolutely manic—"

"I was busy, too," said Petunia, looking tragic and offended as she stroked her pregnant stomach. She wasn't very far gone, so it was still completely flat, but Petunia liked to remind people at every given opportunity.

She had already called Lily several times to discuss her plans for the gender reveal party, or as Beatrice liked to call it, White People Nonsense.

"I know, Tuney, and I'm sorry, I just—"

"All I'm trying to do is organise a delicious Christmas dinner for my family, which must seem terribly small compared to your _very important_ job in the city—"

"It doesn't seem small—"

"I am doing all of this _despite_ being ordered to rest by the doctor," Petunia continued, with an affected sniff, "and _only_ thing I required from my sister was a measly RSVP to let me know she was coming."

Lily bit back a snide retort and tried to sound gentle. "Of course I'm coming."

"Well, you could have let me know."

"I thought you'd take it as a given that I'd be there," Lily reasoned. "We'd all settled on you doing Christmas dinner this year, Tuney—Mum's going, Nan and Grandad are going—and it's not like I have a second family to sneak off to." _You don't need a formal RSVP, you uppity cow,_ she did not add.

Petunia studied Lily for a moment, cradling her stomach beneath their mother's purple afghan. She had been offered the cosiest spot on the sofa and an ottoman for her feet, given her "delicate" condition, and even that hadn't been enough to appease her.

"I didn't want to assume that you were still single," she eventually supplied, with a subtle emphasis on the word _still._ "Did I, Vernon?"

Petunia's vile husband looked away from the television, where Lily was happy to see that Arsenal were giving Vernon's beloved Spurs a sound thrashing. His enormous moustache twitched in irritation. "What?"

"Exactly," said Petunia, with a pointed glare for Lily, as if Vernon had completely proved her point. "Now, I'm feeling quite ill and I'm sure a cup of tea would help settle my stomach, if I still _matter_ enough to you to merit that small favour."

Conversing with her sister was like tiptoeing through an active minefield—no matter how delicately Lily stepped, she always wound up blown to smithereens by the end of the afternoon. Petunia's self-righteous anger coupled with her pregnancy smugness made her more insufferable than ever, and by the time Lily returned to London that evening, she was once again crotchety, and tired, and had forgotten all about the card she'd written to the maniacs in Flat 2.

Then she saw the bright red envelope sticking out of her mailbox.

*******

_Lily in Flat 9,_

_It is I, the person in Flat 2! (not people, NEVER people, my flatmate/best friend hates what I've done to the door and said that it was stupid and I will NOT let him take any credit for it the bastard)_

_Excuse my language. Anyway._

_My wreath and my lights and my cat and I are most grateful to you for your lovely compliments and your thoughts on capitalism. Your incredibly upmarket card now proudly adorns my mantle. Not that I have a mantle. But if I did that's where it would be. It's on my desk right now. I love the cats. Did I mention my cat earlier? Yes I did. Just checked. Sadly I don't have any cat cards so you'll have to make do with Santa slipping off the roof (awful tragic hilarious etc)_

_Happy Christmas,_

_James (Flat 2)_

*******

The maniacs in Flat 2 turned out to be one maniac.

One charming, funny, non-maniacal maniac named James, who had a cat and owned a desk and lived with Ebenezer Scrooge, from the sounds of it.

One maniac. Solo. And his unappreciative best friend.

Lily couldn't understand why anyone would hate what he'd done with his door, least of all his best friend. The door was over-the-top and a little tacky, yes, but that was the whole _point_ of Christmas decorations. She was staunchly against the fashionable, minimalist Christmas decor so often paraded at Debenhams and Selfridges, which offended her deeply. Her friend Kingsley had once hung a couple of baubles on what amounted to a very large, silver-sprayed branch, and Lily had glowered darkly at it whenever she visited his flat.

The maniac in Flat 2 knew where it was at.

Charming. Funny. Non-maniacal cat person.

Curiouser and curiouser.

For the second time in two days, Lily found herself immensely cheered by an offering from her downstairs neighbour, though this time his offering was specifically meant for _her,_ not every resident in a building which comprised of sixty-four flats. She read the card a few times over on Sunday night and took photos of it to send to Beatrice, who agreed that it was brilliant and really enjoyed the illustration at the front. She showed the same photos to some of the girls at work on Monday, then again to Kingsley during dinner at his flat—though only after she'd ranted about the ongoing book cover saga, which seemed as if it would never come to an end, for a good thirty minutes.

"Are you going to shag him?" Kingsley asked, upon examination of the photographs in question.

Lily pulled a face of disgust. _"What?!"_

"This is some sort of...mating ritual, right?"

"What the hell do you think this is, _Blue Planet?"_

"It seems like a mating ritual to me." Her friend returned her phone to her outstretched palm, then ran a hand flat across his smooth, entirely hairless scalp. "A nerdy, heterosexual mating ritual for the Tinder-illiterate of our time."

"I have used Tinder, you know."

"I _do_ know," Kingsley reminded her. "I know that the first time you ever matched with someone, you threw your phone across the sofa because you thought that he could see you through your camera."

"I did _not_ think—"

"And you weren’t even drunk."

"I’m not going to shag James in Flat 2, King," said Lily flatly, and pointed her fork in his direction, a would-be threatening motion that only made him chuckle. Kingsley had well over a foot on her and probably could have ripped a telephone directory in half with his bare hands. "I’ve never communicated with the guy outside of two Christmas cards. I don’t even know what he _looks_ like."

"You don’t?" Kingsley frowned. "That’s a bad sign, if so. I’ve changed my mind—don’t shag him."

"I was never _going_ to!"

"Even so," said Kingsley, looking maddeningly smug. "Keep those knickers up and your tastes discerning."

Lily rolled her eyes, speared a tempura prawn on the end of her fork, and tucked the story of James in Flat 2 into a neat compartment in her memory, destined to be forgotten until next Christmas, when it would undoubtedly serve as a handy "did I ever tell you?" to delight new friends at the dinner table.

It didn’t stay there for very long.

It stayed there for less than two hours, in fact, for when Lily got home that night, she paused by the stairs to take another appreciative look at Flat 2’s remarkable door display.

It was at that moment that Lily noticed that the door had undergone a slight change since last she’d stopped to examine it. One of the paper Christmas stockings had been removed from the painted fireplace, and replaced with a new one which had broken completely away from the Bond Villain theme (goodbye forever, Jaws) in favour of a completely different name.

 _Her_ name.

_Lily._

*******

_James in Flat 2,_

_I'm so sorry to bother you again, but upon receipt of your (awful, tragic, hilarious etc) depiction of Santa taking a tumble off the roof I was immediately filled with questions._

_A) Do you think Santa has a contingency plan in case he DOES die tragically? Are there elves waiting in the wings to take his place? Apprentices he’s training? Or are we just relying on Tim Allen here?_

_B) Wasn’t it weird how Santa died and when Tim Allen turned up at the North Pole none of the elves seemed to care that Santa was dead? They were all just standing around and smiling. It really makes you wonder what sort of working conditions he subjected them to._

_C) WHERE DID YOU BUY THAT CARD?!!!_

_Lily (Flat 9)_

_P.S. Thank you for the stocking. I’m honoured._

*******

Wednesday was a productive day for Lily, who could proudly say at the end of it all that she'd fought the art department and won. To the surprise of all, they managed to come up with a cover that looked as if it could be marketed to the masses without shaming the company on every conceivable level.

This was good. She earned herself a brief reprieve from sending passive-aggressive emails that contained phrases like "per our last conversation" or "for clarity, I'll reiterate" or "why the fuck do you even exist, what is the point of you?" the last of which she had never actually sent but often typed and deleted to make herself feel better. She also realised over lunch that she'd forgotten to open windows 3 and 4 in her advent calendar, which left her with three to open at once when she got home.

It was a Lindt calendar, too. That was quality chocolate. Lily scrimped not on cards or chocolate, because she knew how to live.

When she did get home—happily avoiding Angela, who exited the building while Lily was some way away and set off determinedly in the opposite direction—she checked her mailbox immediately.

Another red envelope had made its way inside. No address on the front. No stamp.

A little thrill of excitement ran the entire length of her spine.

She'd popped a second card in Flat 2's mailbox the day before—this time with different cats, because it was good to have variety—and had gone about her day secretly hoping for a response, though she would not have said that aloud, and certainly not to Kingsley, who had taken a thoroughly depressing and sexually-fixated stance on the matter. It was reasonable of her to want a response, she'd told herself. There was something very fun in keeping a Christmas card correspondence with this random, funny, non-maniacal stranger from her building, like Lily had taken a fabricated-for-likes Twitter story and plopped it directly into her own, very real life. It was a break in an otherwise humdrum day, and something different to look forward to.

It was a silly thing to feel so happy about, and probably a sign that she needed to get out more—spending Friday nights in her flat with only salmon fishcakes and Whitney Houston classics for company was already pathetic enough—but her awareness of that silliness didn't make it any less fun.

As she tore open the envelope to reach the treat inside, a door opened further down the corridor, and though it wasn't Flat 2's, the sound alone was enough to send Lily scarpering up the stairs to her own flat, just in case it was and in case he saw her.

Not that it would be an awfully big deal if he did.

Still, though. Off she ran.

*******

_Lily in Flat 9,_

_The Santa Clause (1994) is a horror movie. Yes I know what you're going to ask and yes I will explain._

_Successful toy salesman and deadbeat dad Tim Allen accidentally startles Santa to death. This is awful but could happen to anyone. Only problem (aside from involuntary manslaughter) is he’s forced to assume Santa's identity and abandon his entire life and he has ABSOLUTELY NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER! THAT'S ILLEGAL SURELY? What happens down on earth?! Where do his friends and colleagues think he went? Do they just assume that he's dead and hold a memorial? WHAT A FUCKED UP FILM! Jingle All the Way is FAR superior The End._

_I'm really glad you like the card because I made it myself a few weeks ago. That brag was so smooth I bet you didn’t even know it WAS a brag but it was and now I've told you so there's no hiding the brag now._

_James (in 2, who often brags)_

_P.S. Dr. No had a henchwoman called Sister Lily so it passes, it totally passes._

*******

"Do you think you're being catfished?" said Beatrice, on Thursday night.

Lily hit pause on the remote and turned her head to stare at her friend. "Pardon?"

"Catfished," Bea repeated, drawing her stockinged feet up onto the sofa. Behind her, the lights that she had strung around Lily's Christmas tree twinkled merrily in the otherwise dark room. "By Christmas card guy."

"How could Christmas card guy be catfishing _me_ when I'm the one who sent the first card?"

"You only sent that card in the first place because of his crazy front door."

"So?"

 _"So,_ he could have set that door up to lure you in."

That was so ridiculous that Lily merely laughed in response, and raised the remote to start the movie again.

"I'm serious!" Bea cried, before Lily could hit play and interrupt her train of thought with a young Macaulay Culkin being adorable in New York City. "What if he did?"

"Do you _really_ think that my downstairs neighbour would decorate his front door for Christmas in the hopes that some random woman in the building would write him a card?" said Lily flatly, tossing the remote on a couch cushion. "You think he anticipated that exact outcome?"

Beatrice shrugged. "It worked for the witch in Hansel and Gretel."

"The witch in Hansel and Gretel was trying to cannibalise those children."

"I know," said Bea, her brown eyes wide and her gaze extremely pointed. "Really makes you think about his motives, doesn't it?"

Once again, Lily found herself bereft of any adequate response that didn't involve battering her friend with a cushion, but Beatrice _had_ come over to help her put her tree up—not to mention the half empty wine glass balanced precariously on the sofa's arm next to her friend's elbow—so she clambered to her feet and headed towards the kitchen.

"Grab another bottle would you?" called Beatrice after her retreating back.

"I think you've had more than enough to drink, actually."

"What, because of my very reasonable cannibal catfish theory?" Lily heard the sofa creak. "I'm trying to save your life, you know!"

Lily, meanwhile, had entered her kitchen, flicked on the light and opened a cupboard to locate a snack. Beatrice followed her in, smirking at her own cleverness.

"I regret showing you the other card," Lily informed her promptly.

"Please. You were dying to show someone," said Beatrice, leaning back against the fridge with her arms folded over her chest. "I haven't pissed you off for real, have I?"

"No," Lily assured her, "it's just that I'm quite sure I'm not in any immediate danger from catfish, or cannibals, or sweetie-peddling witches." She withdrew from the cupboard with a packet of chocolate biscuits in her hand. "Also, you need to stop watching that stupid show if these are the conspiracy theories you're coming up with."

"But it's so _funny!"_ Bea protested. "There's nothing better than watching some jacked up idiot realise that the hot girl he's been nutting over for the past six months is a middle-aged man with a beer belly."

"Is the beer belly filled with the dismembered remains of children? Because if not, I'm failing to see your point."

"I don't have a point, I was just being contrary," said Beatrice, grinning, and deftly caught the packet of biscuits that Lily threw in her direction. "What about the cannibal, though?"

"What about him?"

"Are you gonna send him another card?"

"No," said Lily, with great dignity. "No, I am not."

At least, she told herself, not unless he replied to the one she'd dropped in his mailbox that afternoon.

*******

_James (in 2, who should brag — you designed it YOURSELF? Really?!!!!! It's so good! Professional quality, and I would know because, as I said before, I take my Christmas cards very seriously. Is that what you do for a living? I am amazed, amazed, amazed, also wish that I could buy more from you and give them to everyone I know.)_

_Re: The Santa Clause, I completely agree with you, that film is a straight-up festival of horrors. What about the part where Tim Allen is forced to continually drink milk even though he's lactose intolerant? Or when he's magicked into an extreme obesity that grows within him like a fucking parasite, and even the doctor can't explain it? That’s TERRIFYING!_

_Lily (in 9, remains amazed)_

_P.S. "PUT THAT COOKIE DOWN! NOW!"_

*******

_Lily in 9,_

_And after all of that does Tim Allen finally get to spend a happy and fulfilling life with Charlie, his only son and the most important person in his life? No. NO. He has to live in the North Pole with David fucking Krumholtz._

_James (you know where I live by now)_

_P.S. I don’t design cards for a living, much to my chagrin. I work for my dad at his company because I’m a privileged arsehole but I like to SPEND a good portion of my workday secretly doing art stuff so… good enough? I can give you a few more cards like the first one I sent you (unless you threw it out in which case OUCH and no cards for you)_

_P.P.S. Excellent quote but nothing beats Phil Hartman sadly saying "Balthazar."_

*******

They were really getting into it now.

 _It_ being an animated discussion about Christmas movies, but still… there it was and they were getting into it.

Such a conversation wasn't standard Christmas card protocol, but then again, nothing she and James from Flat 2 were doing could have amounted to standard card protocol, but it was fun, and she was enjoying herself.

Enjoying herself a little _too_ much, maybe.

That thought occurred to her on Friday evening, when she discovered a card waiting in her mailbox after work and practically skipped on the spot, only to feel immensely disappointed when she took it out and realised that it had been sent by her aunt in Ireland. That knee-jerk reaction rattled Lily enough that she turned on her heel and walked back out the door she'd just entered—fishing out her phone to invite an all-too-willing Beatrice to dinner and drinks—because she _wasn't_ going to let herself have nothing better to do on a Friday night than sit around her flat with a lonely glass of wine, waiting for a card from a faceless, charming, non-maniacal maniac.

He'd come through by the time she got home, and a brand new card was waiting for her to enjoy.

Bless his heart.

Lily was cool, though—cool as a cucumber—so she left it there until the morning, plucking it casually out of the box when she returned from her Saturday swim. There had been some grand plan to reorganise her wardrobe, but once she sat down on her sofa—card in her lap and her arm muscles aching slightly—she somehow… forgot to move for several hours.

Not that watching a terrible Christmas movie—much, much worse than _The Santa Clause_ or _Jingle All The Way—_ on Netflix was a better use of her time, but as it centred on a baker who did little to no baking for the film's entire duration, and because that pissed her off no end, she found herself motivated to do some baking herself when the credits started rolling.

A quick sprint to Tesco Express and another hour later, and Lily had a batch of white chocolate and cranberry cookies chilling on her sideboard.

Shame she'd baked them on a Saturday, though. They'd keep perfectly well until she took them to work on Monday, but it would have been nice if there'd been someone around to enjoy one while it was fresh as could be.

She could invite Kingsley over, she supposed. He'd been talking about spending a chilled weekend at home, so he likely wouldn't be busy.

And there was Angela across the hall, who would definitely accuse Lily of trying to fatten her up, but take about six of them anyway.

Failing that, there was always…

But that'd be weird, right? Super weird. She didn't even _know_ the guy—or she did _a little,_ but knowing a man's opinion on a single Tim Allen movie didn't give her the right to start feeding him like a concerned mother hen.

He'd think it was strange, if she posted him a cookie.

Then again, he _had_ offered her more cards, and she could easily word her latest like it was an even trade. Cookie for cards. Cards for cookie. Look at her, being nice and neighbourly and friendly to the charming guy downstairs, who could have been eighty-five for all she knew, but certainly _seemed_ younger.

Not that his age mattered a whit.

She'd give him a cookie, she decided, and wrapped the best one in cellophane to bring downstairs.

Or maybe she could give him a second…

No.

_No._

One cookie was more than enough.

*******

_James,_

_"I got a Turbo Man for Johnny months ago. It’s nestled safely under our tree._

_Nestled safely under our tree._

_Nestled safely under our tree."_

_More cards would be very much appreciated, and of course I haven't thrown away the first one or any of its subsequent siblings. If you ever fancied trying to make it in the art world, I think you’d stand an excellent shot at success. That's just an observation from your friendly neighbourhood card-giver/baker (please enjoy the cookie — which you do not have to put down, despite what Arnold Schwarzenegger might insist)_

_Lily (who had to Google Arnold Schwarzenegger to spell his name right)_

*******

"Hang on," said the voice. "I have to leave Lily her card for today."

Someone's trainers squeaked against the floor, a man coughed quietly, and Lily froze like a statue at the top of the stairs.

 _Shit,_ was her first, panicked, highly inelegant thought. _Shit,_ and _shit_ again, and then, _why aren't I moving?_

She had no reason to freeze—in fact, she really _shouldn't_ have let herself stop. She had ten minutes to catch a train that she was almost certainly bound to miss, which meant she'd be very late to Sunday dinner at her mum's, and Petunia would be irate.

Of course, Petunia was always irate, but she was so much easier to deal with when her anger was totally unfounded, and Lily could laugh wryly about it when she got home later that night.

It had gone very quiet downstairs, like the world had stilled. Was he there still? Had he left already? From where she was standing, Lily couldn't see the part of the hall where the mailboxes lived (and he, to her relief, would not have been able to see her) but she was sure she would have heard if he'd walked out the door, which was old and heavy and in desperate need of a visit from an oil can.

He'd probably heard her grind to a halt at the top of the stairs, she realised, her face growing warm, and was watching the stairs expectantly, waiting for someone to descend.

She should have. She _could_ have, if only her stupid bloody feet weren't flat-out refusing to move.

"What are you waiting for?" said another man suddenly. The man was clearly standing in the hall, but Lily jumped at the sound of his voice as if he'd barked the words directly into her ear.

"I don't know," came the first voice. James's voice. "I don't think the card is right."

He had a really nice voice, low and rather posh, but in a nice, non-wankery way, though Lily shouldn't have expected otherwise. He _had_ called himself a privileged arsehole, after all.

 _"Oh,"_ his friend snarled, "for the love of _Christ—"_

"No, it's just—it's just I feel like I haven't said much this time, because I couldn't really think of anything, and I don't want her to think—"

"What?"

"I don't want her to think that I want to…" He sighed. "To stop the conversation."

"What conversation?"

"The one we're having."

What followed was yet another silence—a silence so long and so heavy that Lily could imagine the pointed stare that James's friend must have been levelling at him at that very moment, though she had no idea what either of them looked like.

"That's the most pathetic thing I've ever heard, and I've watched Pete try to score a date," said his friend, his tone bitterly scornful. "Just give her your fucking number already—"

"I _can't_ give her my number!" James yelped.

"Why not?"

"Because she'd think I'm—"

"A person with a phone?"

"She'll think I'm a psycho," said James flatly, "or that I want to get into her pants."

The other man laughed. "Piss off with your 'get into her pants.' As if she'd think that when you don't even know what she looks like."

"But _she_ doesn't know that, does she?"

"Do you honestly think that giving her your number is any less weird than what you're both doing now?" his mate retorted. "What are you going to do when Christmas is over? Move on to Valentine's Day cards? Easter? Mother's Day?"

"You're such a prick."

"You could work with holidays from other countries, I suppose." The other man's tone was thoughtful now. "Send her a 'Happy Hindi New Year' card in March. I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

"I'll post the fucking card, okay?"

"No, really, I think I've hit on something. When's World Malaria Day? That's romantic. Or what about—"

"Shut up, would you?" James cried, punctuating his evident irritation with the metallic, clanging sound of a mailbox flap swinging shut. "There. It's gone, and if she thinks I never want to talk to her again—"

"I won't care," said his mate, sounding bored. "Now, come on, Remus will do his nut if we're late."

James mumbled something in response, but didn't seem of a mind to argue. There was a short flurry of movement, a heavy wooden door slammed soundly in its frame, and then the world was quiet once again.

Quiet, but for the steady, resolute, and absolutely thunderous pounding in Lily's chest, which had started the very moment she'd first heard his voice, and not let up at all.

It was a pounding that could not be reasonably or properly explained by any stretch of the imagination. Lily didn't have a face to go with his name. She didn't have a clear or functional lens through which to properly examine his character. There was no reason whatsoever for her to feel the way she was feeling. No context, no evidence, no chemistry at all, just a very lovely voice and a handful of pretty cards.

Romantic, his mate had said. Romantic.

Did that mean he…but he couldn't. Didn't. That wasn't feasible. It made no sense at all.

_Romantic._

What the ever-loving fuck had Lily started?

*******

_Lily (lives in 9, baking prodigy)_

_Cookie was bloody DELICIOUS where the hell have you been all my life?_

_Enclosed are more cards. Feel free to go nuts._

_James_

*******

_James,_

_It struck me today that we are neither of us being particularly environmentally conscious with this constant exchange of cards. So many trees are sacrificed at this time of year, destined to adorn living rooms for a glorious yet all-too-brief period of being the focus of admiration, before being cruelly discarded and turned to mulch. I'm trying to do my part for the environment by re-using the same fake tree every year, but I still think I can do better. We can all do better, right?_

_Basically, this is my roundabout way of giving you my number, which is 07561 084351, without coming off like some sort of lunatic who is catfishing you to devour your flesh (it's a theory my friend has — long story, honestly) I just thought you might want it because we're friends now, I think. But no pressure or anything. Use it or don't use it. I'm cool either way._

_Lily_


End file.
